My niece is an incoming senior and wants to take a gap year before college. She has her equity card from work she did as a child, but has not been as active as a teenager. She is interested doing something with voice, musical composition (pop) and/or musical theater. Ideas appreciated.
If she is already equity, can we assume she is in a “big” city? One with lots of theater opportunities, dance/voice/acting studios, perhaps a college conservatory with a community education component? What kind of training does she already have? Does she play an instrument, piano? Is her ultimate goal to get into an MT/voice/music program after her gap year? Or is she just looking to fill her time with worthwhile pursuits while she “finds” herself and her future path? Is money no object? Or is she expected to earn money while she’s taking the gap?
She is not in a “big city”. She does not know for sure what she wants to do, only that she does not want to go straight to college. As for the other questions, her Mom is going to set up an account and I’ll let her answer.
She wants to know if there is a one year intensive program in acting, musical theatre, vocal performance or music composition.
I think New York Film Academy has a 1 year music theatre program. For sure Cap 21, Circle in the Square and AMDA all offer 2 year conservatory training programs.
I think if you were wanting to take a gap year and go into a one yr program that that could be beneficial for auditions as it would essentially be massive college prep training. Albeit an additional expense but good training nonetheless . Also if it were a rigorous program it would look good on your college application I would think if want to go to college at some point. Also it would be a good way to see if it truly is something you want to pursue
You might check with Interlochen - we have a couple of friends who did a post grad year there after their senior year. I’m not sure if they let you do just a post grad year or if you have to have attended at least a year of high school there. But it may be worth asking.
Also, our Ds college audition coach, Mary Anna Dennard, had a few kids she worked with the year D did, that were taking a gap year because they had not been happy with their audition results from the previous year. They all lived at home, took a lot of voice, dance and acting lessons , some also held part time jobs, and all got a lot of coaching from Moo. Their results the next go round were great so it seems to have worked for them. But they specifically were working on getting prepared for college auditions. It sounds like this person is not yet sure if college is for them or not?
I wonder if you do the 2 yr Cap 21 program you could then apply to the BFA program at Molloy afterward and have those 2 years at Cap 2 count toward your BFA? But then you’d still have all your Molloy studies to complete…
Any thoughts info on the Professional semester at Broadway Dance Center in NYC as something for a gap year? Or is that more for students after/during college?